


Restless Memories

by crimsonwinter



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: John Watson - Freeform, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Post - Reichenbach, Reichenbach Fall, Sherlock's Death, Therapy, john angry, john sad, john upset
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-15
Updated: 2014-02-15
Packaged: 2018-01-12 11:57:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1185949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crimsonwinter/pseuds/crimsonwinter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John refuses to take his medication for his night terrors because that's the only way he can be with Sherlock anymore.</p><p>Before Sherlock's return, after John met Mary.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restless Memories

**Author's Note:**

> This was a text post on tumblr and I stole the prompt. I'm so sorry for this pain.

"Hello, John." 

John's therapist smiled warmly at him as he slid into the usual chair, uncomfortable at what he knew she'd asked, but strangely content with knowing he had someone to talk to, someone other than Mary, that is.

"Hello." He fiddled with his hands instantly, as if he needed someone to steady them.

"How are you today?" Her voice inundated him, its saccharine tone refreshing but also disgusting in its efforts to have him confess. He would confess when he was ready.

"I'm okay," he lied.

"Did you dream again last night?"

"Yes."

They faced each other, John in his usual jeans and jacket, his countenance stern and compressed. His therapist was wearing a tight grey skirt and a purple shirt. He knew that if Sherlock were here, he'd have deduced what she'd had for breakfast. But he wasn't here, he was dead. He killed himself nearly two years previous.

John had moved on from that, he'd done his grieving, even found someone else to adventure with, although it wasn't the same. It never would be.

Now his only issue was the night terrors. He didn't dream about a happy life with this girlfriend, he didn't dream of having children, he didn't dream of white picket fences and corgis and sledding. He dreamed of Sherlock. Flashes of color mixed with the sounds of the war, gunshots, the first night they'd met.

"You don't take your medication?"

"How can I?" John spat, turning his grief into anger, forcing his distress at the sweet face of his friend and therapist.

"It helps."

"They're the only way I can see his face."

"I see."

John's words were heavy and he knew that even the comfortable atmosphere was tense when he said them. He was in a relationship with a woman and yet he refused to take his medication in hopes to see Sherlock's high cheeks once more. Even if he woke up in a sweat.

The therapist spoke again, "What did you dream of?"

John inhaled sharply, held his breath painfully for a moment, and let it out, as if breathing was hard enough. He began, "When we were facing Moriarty by the pool. When I was strapped in."

"Moriarty is in many of your dreams?"

"No."'

"Just Sh-"

"Sherlock Holmes." Speaking his name aloud was hard, and although Mary, the good woman she was, gave him the time he needed to say it, it was still painful. The headlines and paparazzi were enough to show him it was real, his name trickling off his dry lips just adding to the pain. It'd been more than a year and it still hurt. It always hurt.

"Just Sherlock, then? In most of them?"

"Yes."

"What did he do in this one?"

The petty talk was tense and rhythmic, John hated it. It was like this with Mary sometimes. With Sherlock, it was always tense, slow, or rushed. Never a steady beat around him.

"He saved me."

"Like he did in real life?"

Sherlock saved him. Sherlock brought adventure and medicine back into his life, when before all he thought of was the war.

"Yes." What a foolish woman, of course it was like in real life.

"Was there anything that didn't happen in real life?"

"Mary was Moriarty."

"Oh."

"Her gun was pointed at Sherlock's head, not mine. We switched spots a lot, which is how he ended up saving me." He'd told her the scene after it actually happened, so she was familiar with the man pointing a gun to John's head as he was strapped into a bomb, Sherlock's gun pointed at Moriarty, Moriarty's snipers pointed at John and Sherlock. Eventually, Sherlock saved them both and ripped the bomb from John's chest. It was surreal.

John was silent now.

"And what about Mary?"

"What about her?"

"Why do you think she was Moriarty in the dream?" The woman's eyes were tired but she tried, and John appreciated it.

"I don't know."

"You don't have any clue?"

"No."

"I see." She scribbled something: Still unsure about girlfriend.

"I miss him."

"I know you do. Did you take my advice?"

"Poetry?"

"Yes."

John picked at the fabric of the chair he sat stiffly in. He played with it for a few moments before responding.

"I tried."

"Did you bring it?"

"No."

"Do you remember it?"

"Sort of."

The woman smiled at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to repeat some of his broken poem.

"I don't know it," John stumbled, suddenly nervous. It was much more personal than he'd expected.

"That's okay, just try."

"Okay." He shifted in his seat, tucking his hand between the hole in his crossed legs.

"'It's not enough for me to say that I miss you, or that I wish you'd stop being dead…' Er…"

"Continue, John, even if it's just pieces."

"Sure… 'It's not enough for me to wish you'd be drinking tea beside me, or that you'd tell me my clothes look sloppy. It's not enough to have someone sleep beside me when I was so used to knowing you were just in the floor below.' That's… don't tell Mary about that part… Then I said, 'Your face haunts my dreams.' That's pretty gay, Jesus."

"John."

"Right. 'She's told me to go on the meds, but I know you would've said they wouldn't help. You would've said that you could break apart the pills and check which ingredients are in them with your microscope…' Microscope, or something. Um, 'It's like war, in that way. My dreams. Lots of flashes and rumblings. My dreams are familiar, but not in the way of war. They're familiar because you're in them. I really do miss you, you bloody fool…' Er…"

John's words failed him now, his spiel ending. The woman looked at him as if she knew something he didn't.

"That was lovely, John. So you don't want to take your medication because you can only see him in your dreams? …What about photos? I'm sure there's plenty from the papers that you could see."

"No!" John slammed his fist down on the arm of the chair, clenched eyes nearly watering. "That's not him! Those pictures aren't him! Bloody wrong!"

She was scared and John could see it, but she kept her form, her legs crossing more tightly.

"The real him likes to curl up on the couch and shoot holes in the wall when he's bored, not cheat at chess. The papers are rubbish, that's not him at all! I know him! I was the only one to know him! And now he's gone. So don't tell me it's the same with pictures, because it's not. He's gone and all I have left is the bloody smell of his coat in my nose and his voice calling my name in my ear. So just stop."

John was rude but he disregarded it. 

Sherlock broke his heart when he jumped, that selfish bastard.

John was left with nothing but nightmares, the only thing tying him to that feeling of waking up knowing he'd be going on an adventure with Sherlock. 

Instead, he woke up and had coffee with his girlfriend.

He wished he had the latter.


End file.
